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Monday, September 16, 2013

#Ethiopia has a prison-in-a-prison for its journalists

Ethiopian
government is the only government of our planet that has prosecuted 12
journalists in relation to ‘terrorism’ and yet says ‘there is no journalist
jailed for what it has written’. A teacher and Journalist Reeyot
Alemu, is one of these convicted journalists in “supporting terrorism”. She was
accused for taking pictures of graffiti (the word ‘beqa’ (enough) written in a street wall - that is said by the
government ‘were written to incite terrorism’) and sending them to Ethiopian Review, a website where she worked as a
reporter and owned by an Ethiopian diaspora, Elias Kifle (who himself is
convicted in absentia).

I
had gone to Kality to visit Reeyot Alemu on August 26, 2013 and I joined her
sister, Eskedar Alemu, right at the door of Kality prison. One of the door
guards told us that only relatives are allowed to visit Reeyot. We argued a
little and she let us pass. We have explained the incident to Reeyot. She then
told us that she was also under pressure from the prison officials enforcing
her to list names of her visitors. Her eyes were shading tears when she said:

“No, I can’t. I
can’t because my visitors are not only family and relatives. I have many
friends who visit me every time and it is my constitutional right to be visited
by every one of them. I told them I won’t be visited by anyone if everyone is
not allowed to…”

15
days later, on the eve of Ethiopian New year – Sep. 10, 2013, the news that
Reeyot Alemu went on hunger strike came out. Her
strike was a reaction to the restrictions of visitors. “She was told that
either of her father, mother or her ‘God father’ would be the only people who are
allowed to visit her”, says Eskedar; even her fiancé, Sileshi Hagos, and other
family members are not allowed to.

The
same had happened to journalist Eskinder Nega. For more than two years, he was
given only a ‘piece’ of his right to be visited by his wife and child but no
one else. Now, he once again is granted back his rights of being visited by
anyone since a few months ago. However, there is no reason uncovered about either
the prior restriction or recent permission of visitors to him.

It
is unfortunate that, unlawfully, the prison administration apply hardly the
same treatment between prisoners who are convicted ‘in relation to’ the controversial
‘terrorism act’ and to that of other convicted criminals.

Double
Standard in Prisoners Treatment

The
time in which family and friends can visit Reeyot and a few other ladies in her
cell has been different and limited as compared to others. According to the
custom, one can visit Reeyot on weekends for only half an hour (from 12:00 AM
to 12:30 PM) and for 10 minutes on weekdays from (12:30PM – 12:40PM); whereas,
one can visit other ‘ordinary’ prisoners, who have been convicted of any crime
including murders, for 3 hours in the morning and other 3 hours in the
afternoon all week long.

The
other difference between Reeyot et al and other prisoners who are convicted of
other crimes is the way visitors communicate with them. While Reeyot hosts
visitors, the guards stand by her to listen to the conversation. If, for
example, she and her visitor prefer to communicate in English, then the guard will
interfere and tell them to speak in Amharic. There is even an experience, which
is reported by Dawit Solomon, a close watch of her case in prison, when the
warders banned her boyfriend’s postcard on which he wrote ‘I love you’ and which
in contrary they thought he is smuggling some other message in.

TPLF
member, Colonel Haimanot (wife to one of big corruption suspect Gebrewahid and
detained while trying to hide documents) is recently moved into Reeyot’s cell. According
to information from Kality prisoners, Col Haimanot has a relative amongst
the prison guards. In transitivity, Haimanot’s relatives are also relatives to
that guard and receive special treatment when arrive there to visit her. Her
visitors will be allowed to get into the cells, take time to have coffee in its
traditional ceremony without having time limit doing so.

The
same had been true for former officials and then prisoners – Tamrat Layne and
Siye Abraha. A prisoner who shared cells with them told me once that these two
people were allowed to go out of the prison with the protection of warders to
take shower, have dinner and sometimes to meet people during nights.

Educational
Opportunity Denials

If
the objective of imprisonment is to correct the convicted ones, then to
encourage reading and education should be one of the tools to meet the
objective. In Kality prison both are allowed but not easily to these
journalists and others who are convicted in relation to ‘terrorism’.

These
prisoners are not allowed to get books. Eskinder says, “Especially those kinds
of books that have titles combining words of ‘Ethiopia’ and ‘history’ are not
allowed in.” The same is true to the ward of Reeyot Alemu and others such as
Wubshet Taye, Bekele Gerba, etc.

Local
independent newspapers and magazines are not also allowed in; Eskinder further
explained it to me that even News TV channels like BBC and Aljazeera are not
allowed to be viewed in zones where he and others are imprisoned.

Reeyot
Alemu, after a tough
struggle with the prison admins and after the media revealed the story, is now
allowed to get distance education. But, it is still difficult for her to get
supplementary books other than the books directly sent to her from the College.

Health Care
Denials

Reeyot
has health problem for which she
is barely receiving proper treatment; she is suffering from breast tumor. She
is not getting a follow up from the same health officer who knows her medical
history. Rather, she visits new doctors every time she goes to hospital and she
is not usually informed about the day of her next appointment. Activist Kirubel
Teshome has once explained it as:

She went to
medical checkup on March 19 where her new doctor, who has no follow up of her
case and hardly knows her medical history, ordered for another appointment
after three months.

However hard she
insisted to know the exact appointment date, she is totally made out of the
loop and it is still held a secret by the prison guards and management. The
guard who escorted her to hospital told her that she received the appointment
date but she is not ordered to tell her when.

Reeyot told us
that she formally complained to Prison administrator about the lack of proper
medical attention she should be having and impartial treatment of the rights to
her education she is not yet allowed to enroll.

The prison
administrators heard her appeals and grievances but instead of relieving her
from the additional burden of injustice they formally charged her with an
alleged accusation of not respecting and abiding prison rules and guards. Such
charges utmost are punishable to solitary confinement with no permission to
visitors, even close relatives.

The Warders
don’t care about Hunger Strike:

They learned it from Top Government Officials

Reeyot
Alemu went on a hunger strike starting from September 10, 2013 for more than
100 hours. A couple of other prisoners (Emawayish and Fetiya) joined her all
along. However, during the times she went on hunger strike, the prison
administration do not like to show any sympathy or tried to answer any of her
questions. Nevertheless, they detained her boy friend who went into Kality to
try his chances of visiting her for three and half hours, hit him on the head
and released him on dusk. Knowing that she is on her 4th day of hunger
strike, the prison admins told her family on Friday that they will not discuss
the issue before the following Tuesday.

Reeyot
quit the hunger strike and start eating on Sep. 15, 2013 after the pressure of
family and friends in the prison. No government official has commented about the
entire crisis.

“Reeyot is the
symbol of injustice in the prisons”

A
friend who has heard the news called and shared me her frustrations: ‘Reeyot is
one of best known among jailed journalist. She is a recipient of IWMF award for
Courage in Journalism, UNESCO 2013 World Press
Freedom Prize
and HRW’s Press Freedom Award and other well known international awards since
her imprisonment two years ago. She, at least, has a few - though not enough - voices
to tell the injustice against her. But, in the same prison, there are many
prisoners who are unfairly convicted due to their political opinions on either ethnic
and/or religious issues and are passing through inhuman treatment’. There are
many other voices we are not hearing. Reeyot’s voice is a symbol to all the
other voices.

In
July 2013, a delegation of EU Human Rights’ sub-committee, led by Barbara
Lochbihler, was denied access to
the prisons.
Officials denied the EU delegation to access the prisons only because they
would rather risk the economic support than uncovering the inhuman treatment in
the prisons.

I,
myself, was detained for over a night for taking only three pictures when
police crackdown anti-Graziani memorial demonstration in May. The jail that I
and others spend the night was small, filthy and full of detainees more than
its capacity. Some of the detainees have stayed there for months without being
charged that they were jealous to learn we were leaving the next morning.

In Kality, the cells might
not be either as congested or as filthy as other area jails. Nevertheless, as
long as the prison administrations are not governed by law, their ill treatment
to the prisoners makes the worst of Kality.

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About Me

This blog is run by a writer and democracy activist BefeQadu Z Hailu - an MIS expert by profession and a writer by inclination. BefeQadu worked as Knowledge Management Expert in St. Mary's University; Production Manager for an outsourced program in FM 96.3; Managing Editor of Enqu Magazine; Editor in Chief of Weyeyet Magazine; Volunteering Editor of Global Voices [in AM]; co-founder and blogger at @Zone9ners. BefeQadu has published an award winning novella, ‘Children of Their Parents’, in 2012. Also, he won multiple awards, along with his Zone 9 Blogging Collective colleagues, including CPJ's Press Freedom Award in 2015. BefeQadu has been jailed four times for blogging and activism practices. Follow him on Twitter @befeqe; Facebook.com/befeqez
Website: befeqe.blogspot.com